Coconut supply from the Dominican Republic looks tight

“At the moment, coconuts are expensive and they’re short on them,” says Emil Serafino of New Jersey-based Exp. Group LLC. “Coconuts are an item that decreases in availability from the Dominican Republic over the years.” Serafino points to the explosion of the Dominican’s hospitality industry which has led to numerous hotels being built recently on the island. “And coconuts are grown organically and wild—there aren’t too many coconut farms in the Dominican,” he says. “And those hotels are taking up a lot of the growing areas for coconuts.”

So while the prices are higher on coconuts, the prices have also tended to stay high. “The main farmers, there’s just a few of them, they pretty much stick to their price so it’s pretty stable,” he says.

Demand is droppingMeanwhile demand for the coconut is varying. “There is a lot of consumption locally in the Dominican for coconuts and their biggest market is exported to Haiti,” Serafino says. “But in North America, I don’t see any increase in demand. If anything, I found it to be decreasing because of the costs.”

Looking ahead, Serafino isn’t sure what to expect since the island’s weather conditions can make sourcing volatile at times. “We go week by week because of those conditions,” he says. “Coconuts are usually affected by the weather in the Dominican Republic because to harvest it, they wait for good weather. Otherwise it’s very hard to pick and on that island it rains a lot. And then this year we have had more than our share of rain.”